Vicodin, antidepressants, anxiolytics. Take a cocktail of pills so you can function, but the anxiety's still there, the depression's still there, the only thing that's doing its job is the goddamn narcotic. It's great. I almost don't hurt, and I'm just a little bit loopy all the time -- I can't be anxious, I don't want to cry. I want to smile, I want to talk to people, I want to do my job. I feel like Nikita is back. But Nikita is manic, weird, functional only because mania and work feed into each other until she spins out and falls over and lies on the floor in gentle hysterics until she can get up and start running again. But I cling to that mode as right and good and the way I should be because mostly, on balance, it's exhilarating.
"I'm exponentially me," said Ellen Forney.
I spoke to you for the first time in three weeks, since that time I was drunk and angry and shouty, and you'd been a dickbag since the moment you walked into the bar and you kept cutting me off, like you always do. "Coleslaw." I managed not to append, "What the fuck else would it be?" and you managed not to interrupt me after two syllables. Good job. I still don't want to work for you.